Thursday, November 24, 2011

Review: 'Green Lantern' has dazzling scenery but a dull and silly plot


Green Lantern   PG 13          
            Martin Campbell, the Zorro guy who did some James Bond also, directs a superhero movie based on the 'Green Lantern' comics of the past generation. GL was seen in cartoons also in the 80s and 90s and some kind of reboot last decade as part of Justice League. Anyway, he didn't go solo on screen before. The special effects should not control the movie, at at times here they do. The problem is the script and hammy acting, where Reynolds can't decide whether or not the sarcastic antihero bit works or not. (Thor was a better story and the actor playing him knew to use just the right amount of camp). The plot, classic empowerment comic book hero idea. The first human is chosen to hold the ring of power (not unlike a Lord of the Ring, or a wedding band), ha, and with it he can make anything happen. Nice to see heroes from the comic books although only die hard Lantern fans are even going to get it. (I am admittedly not and am fairly indifferent to rings of power). So non fans are probably like, what's going on? Why do we care about Sinistro? (Who is obviously evil with a name and a face like that). Who is this Parallax? Isn't that a solar configuration of orbit? That kind of thing makes the average moviegoer wonder what's going on. If you ignore that, and most laws of physics, it's a fun ride at times. Really the B story of the romance and the weird mind reading scientist stalking after the girl for no reason, are kind of strange, like they had to toss in some humans to fake character arcs that weren't really there. No better or worse than Fantastic Four from last decade. 
Review by Adam Browne

No comments:

Post a Comment